The title is based on the term "Stark Raving Mad" meaning to be incredibly crazy.

The show makes a reference to AFV.

Trivia

In a rare occurrence, this episode was re-aired in prime time following Michael Jackson's death.

Due to concerns about crediting, Michael Jackson used the alter ego "John Jay Smith" in the credits, similar to Dustin Hoffman. After the airing of this episode, the producers agreed to impose a policy that psuedonyms were disallowed for all future guest stars.

This episode originally was supposed to have a sequel, in which Leon Kompowsky (the mental patient who thought he was Michael Jackson) now thinks he is Prince and encourages the town to be free and open with their sexual lives. Prince (who died in 2016) declined the chance to appear on the show, making this sequel the only episode that has been written but never produced (though the idea of someone encouraging the town to be free and open with their lives would come about in later seasons).

Recycled animation of Bart sleeping from Bart Gets an "F" is used at the beginning of Act 1 when Lisa wakes him up and reminds him about her birthday. This is the first Season 3 episode to use recycled animation.

This episode was the first to be produced and aired in Dolby Surround.

The January 1992 rerun of this episode contained a cold opening before the opening sequence in response to George Bush's comments during his re-election campaign that he wished "to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons". In the brief scene, the Simpsons watch Bush's speech over dinner, and Bart states "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the depression too."

Lisa turns 8 years old in this episode (She used to be 7 years old for the first two seasons, and for the first 35 episodes of the show), and has been that age since this episode.

Previous Episode References

During the phoning sequence, it shows the following nine characters on the phone from the following previous (and one future) episodes that are being told that Michael Jackson is coming to town: